Dashiell Hammett quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Dashiell Hammett on Wise Famous Quotes.

I once knew a man who stole a Ferris Wheel...

I just tell you what happens. I don't explain it.

Another man whose social life has ruined him.

You don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave afterwards.

You got to look on the bright side, even if there ain't one.

Strictly speaking, there are no real substitutes for sexual satisfaction.

Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me.

He looked rather pleasantly, like a blonde satan.

Thanks for the information about what we call business.

It's awfully easy to be in love in jail.

I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother.

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

It was a good trick, only it didn't work. In

Dorothy asked timidly: "Did his wife say anything?
"She sent her love to you."
Nora said: "Stop being nasty.

To swipe the immortal lines uttered by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, a great mystery should take the lid off life and let [you] look at the works.

She grinned at me. 'You got types?'
'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.

He's the guy that the joke was wrote about: 'Is he a criminal lawyer?' 'Yes, very.

The roof might fall in; anything could happen.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

I guess I can put two and two together."
"Sometimes the answer's four," I said, "and sometimes it's twenty-two ...

Play with murder enough and it gets you one of two ways. It makes you sick, or you get to like it.
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He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.

I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.

What do people think about my staying with Harrison with him chasing everything that's hot and hollow?

This damned burg's getting me. If I don't get away soon I'll be going blood-simple like the natives.

She seems to be having a pretty good time despite her worrying. That's Lily.

You might as well take your punishment and get it over with

Be still while I get up or I'll make an opening in your head for brains to leak in.

Who shot him? I asked.
The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.

I don't know much about him; never heard him say more than nope or yup.

What do you do with all your money?"
"Me and the French hoard gold.

That's Mama, divorces a lunatic and marries a gigolo.

People always say things like, Oh, well, he was suffering so much that he was better off dying. But that's not true. You're always better off living.

I have not killed anyone. They will not let me.

I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it. Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon)

I said: "You don't want to pick a fight with me, Mimi."
She looked at me as if she were going to say I love you, and asked: "Is that a threat?

I know a man who once stole a Ferris-wheel

It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.

You ought to have known I'd do it!" My voice sounded harsh and savage like a stranger's in my ears. "Didn't I steal a crutch from a cripple?

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.

If a man says a thing often enough, he is very likely to acquire some sort of faith in it sooner or later.

What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with Life.

I don t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.

How about a drop of something to cut the phlegm?
Why don't you stay sober today?
We didn't come to New York to stay sober.

His wife was a tall, stringy woman, perhaps five years older than her husband - say, forty - with a mouth and chin that seemed shaped for gossiping.

A bullet kissed a hole in the door-frame close to my noodle.

Nora: "How do you feel?"
Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.

you'll have your city back, all nice and clean and ready to go to the dogs again

If you aren't normal, it's because you're tougher, saner, cooler than normal.

I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.

I like women. I really like women.

With what dope I got I think it fills me in pretty well.

How do you feel?" "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second you.

To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.

I found I was repeating myself. It is the beginning of the end when you discover you have style.

It's probably polite to pretend you don't see people coming out of pawnshops, anyhow.

Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.

I haven't any sort of plans for the future but I reckon things will work out in some manner.

He went like that," Spade said, "like a fist when you open your hand.

And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it." - Detective Sam Spade

You're not going to go around poking at the fire and straightening up the room again, are you?

The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrendered

Nora said: 'I love you, Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fascinating people.

A lot of fancier yarns come from people trying to tell the truth. It's not easy once you're out of the habit.

Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.

The outcome of successful planning always looks like luck to saps.

My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

I was two pavements from my destination when somebodey S-s-s-s-s'd at me.
I probably didn't jump twenty feet.

Nick: "Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep?"
Nora: "No, thanks."
Nick: "Maybe it would if I took one.

Feed the lettuce to the bunny and eat the bunny

He's cute," I said.
"Uh-huh," the grey man agreed, "and so's dynamite.

Most things in San Francisco can be bought or taken.

But besides, I haven't the time, I'm too busy trying to see that you don't lose any of the money I married you for.

The truth is you don't like the theater except the times when you're in a room by yourself putting the play on paper.

He did not smile. I don't believe in anything, but I'm too much of a gambler not to be affected by a lot of things.

Looks like she's been slapping the kid again.

I said: All right, talk, but do you mind putting the gun away? My wife doesn't care, but I'm pregnant and I don't want the child to be born with ...